Boy Scouts shill for MPAA with copyright merit badge — The Los Angeles Council of the Boy Scouts of America will offer rewards to Scouts who absorb a brainwashing regime written by the MPAA. The merit badge patch in "respecting copyright" will almost certainly not include any training on fair use …

Scrybe: Online Organiser with true Offline support — Scrybe is an online organiser that looks t — oo good to be true, and some are dying to try. — Some core features are: — Offline Support: Go to "work offline" and it just works? It even synchronizers up when you get online again.

Hands On The Zune — Today, I had an opportunity to listen to a few songs and a radio station on the Zune here at the Microsoft Campus in Seattle. — All Zune colors were present, brown, white (or off-white) and black. The brown design was by far my favorite color of the three.

Building a 'Googley' Workforce — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — To understand the corporate culture at Google Inc., take a look at the toilets. — Every bathroom stall on the company campus holds a Japanese high-tech commode with a heated seat. If a flush is not enough, a wireless button on the door activates a bidet and drying.

IE 7 vs IE 6 — Back in April I wrote an entry complaining about IE's performance as a Web 2.0 platform: … I am happy to say that I was wrong. — Microsoft's IE team has clearly been hard at work on improving their browser's memory management and JavaScript performance.

No Photoshop? No worry. — There's Paint.NET :) Yes that's right, almost 100% written in MANAGED CODE. I remember using this application when it was released as version 1 on my Windows XP. Although a novel idea at that time, the performance was very sluggish. Perhaps written without optimizing the .NET code.

Loma Linda .... Fiber Town, USA — Loma Linda, a town of 20,000 residents wedged between Riverside and San Bernadino in Southern California, says it was the first city in the U.S. to mandate a building code for residential and commercial structures to include fiber optics.

Google Acquires SpaceShipOne? — Categorize this as another unsubstantiated Google rumor, but the word on the street is that Google has acquired SpaceShipOne and is putting it inside building 43 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. No word on the purchase price …

Security analysts: Mac attacks rare but may rise — NEW YORK (CNN) — Apple computers have long been prized for being relatively virus-free. But as more people use Apple products, experts say the company is increasingly becoming a target for cyber pranksters and criminals writing viruses and other forms of malware.

Internet video business challenges — I'm going to be going to see John Battelle this afternoon (he runs the blogging advertising network, Federated Media) and I'm going to ask him about the challenges of making an Internet content business work. — Here's the trouble.

BATTERY LIFE — Ok, I've got some battery life numbers to share: — Zune has a battery life of up to 13 hours, when listening to music. Oh. . . and that's with the wireless turned on. When you turn the wireless off, Zune has up to 14 hours of battery life when listening to music …

Complete Works of Charles Darwin now online for free — Yesterday, the Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online officially launched, bringing 50,000 pages of searchable text and 40,000 images to the public for free. Presented by the University of Cambridge and other collaborators …

Phil Harrison Talks Downloadable PS1 Games on PS3 — New details on how backwards compatible games will work. — Following today's PS3 press conference in which Sony demonstrated its online PlayStation Store, 1UP was able to speak with Sony's Phil Harrison regarding the PS1 and PS2 titles …

Keep Ask.com As Your Steady with IE 7 and Firefox — Relationships. Can anyone get by without 'em? Take Ask.com, for instance. We cherish our time with you. We want to keep what you and we have going strong. — That's why we've made it easy to add Ask.com as your default search …